Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norris, Edward (1663-1726)
NORRIS, EDWARD (1663–1726), physician, born in 1663, fifth son of Thomas Norris of Speke, Lancashire, and younger brother of Sir William Norris [q. v.], graduated B.A. from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1686, and proceeded M.A. 1689, M.B. 1691, and M.D. 1695. He practised medicine at Chester, and his scientific reputation is attested by the fact that as early as 1698 he was a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1699 he accompanied his brother, Sir William Norris, as secretary of his embassy to the mogul emperor, and visited the camp of Aurangazíb in the Deccan from April to November 1701. He returned home in 1702, bringing with him a cargo valued at 147,000 rupees, partly his brother's property. After an interval of mental prostration induced by the perils and anxieties he had gone through, he resumed the profession of medicine at Utkinton, Cheshire, and was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1716. He died on 22 July 1726, and was buried at St. Michael's chapel, attached to Garston Hall, a manor of the Norris family, near Speke. In 1705 he had married Ann, daughter of William Cleveland of Liverpool, by whom he left one son, with whose death, some time before 1736, the family of the Norrises of Speke in the male line became extinct.
[Norris Papers, ed. T. Heywood, in Chetham Soc. vol. ix.; Baine's Lancaster, ii. 757; Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 39; Bruce's Annals of East India Company, iii. 463, &c. Norris's letters as secretary to his brother's embassy are preserved in the India Office.]